Cryp­tic Mes­sages Found On Shell Cas­ings At Scene Where Health Insur­ance CEO Was Gunned Down

Detec­tives inves­ti­gat­ing the scene where Unit­ed­Health­care CEO Bri­an Thomp­son was fatal­ly shot on Wednes­day found shell cas­ings with the words “deny,” “defend,” and “depose” writ­ten on them, accord­ing to ABC News.

As he was approach­ing the Hilton hotel in Mid­town Man­hat­tan ear­ly Wednes­day morn­ing, Thomp­son, 50, was shot from behind by a man wear­ing a black hood­ie and mask. Author­i­ties said the shoot­ing appeared to be a “brazen tar­get­ed attack,” and the sus­pect is still on the loose after flee­ing the scene on foot before get­ting on a bike and rid­ing into Cen­tral Park. NYPD detec­tives said they are try­ing to deter­mine if the words writ­ten on the shell cas­ings point to a pos­si­ble motive for the shoot­ing, ABC News report­ed.

Pho­tos post­ed by the NYPD on Wednes­day after­noon showed the sus­pect order­ing at a Star­bucks two blocks away from the Hilton hotel just before the shoot­ing took place. In those pho­tos, the sus­pect is wear­ing a black hood and mask, mak­ing only his nose and eyes vis­i­ble.

These are addi­tion­al images of the sus­pect sought in con­nec­tion to this morning’s homi­cide. If you have any infor­ma­tion about this inci­dent, the sus­pect, or his loca­tion please con­tact @NYPDTips at 1(800)577-TIPS. https://t.co/rtfVynljXa pic.twitter.com/kUJr7l0nxZ

— NYPD NEWS (@NYPDnews) Decem­ber 4, 2024

Thompson’s wife told NBC News that her hus­band had received mul­ti­ple death threats, but she wasn’t sure of the spe­cif­ic details sur­round­ing them. The New York Times report­ed that a law enforce­ment offi­cial con­firmed that Thomp­son had received mul­ti­ple threats before he was killed. Thompson’s wife guessed that the threats could have been relat­ed to “lack of cov­er­age.”

Unit­ed­Health­care — a sub­sidiary of Unit­ed­Health Group, one of the largest com­pa­nies in the world — has been crit­i­cized for deny­ing patients’ claims. Last year, Unit­ed­Health was sued by the fam­i­lies of two deceased for­mer ben­e­fi­cia­ries who allege that the com­pa­ny used arti­fi­cial intel­li­gence to deny extend­ed care cov­er­age that doc­tors had pre­scribed, CBS News report­ed. The law­suit alleges that Unit­ed­Health know­ing­ly used an AI mod­el that had a 90% error rate.

Thomp­son and oth­er Unit­ed­Health Group exec­u­tives were also being inves­ti­gat­ed by the Depart­ment of Jus­tice when he was gunned down.

On Feb­ru­ary 16 of this year, Thomp­son sold shares worth $15.1 mil­lion just two weeks before the pub­lic found out about a fed­er­al antitrust probe, accord­ing to Crain’s New York Busi­ness. The DOJ was report­ed­ly inves­ti­gat­ing whether Unit­ed­Health Group vio­lat­ed antitrust laws by mak­ing acqui­si­tions that con­sol­i­dat­ed its mar­ket posi­tion.

Thompson’s sale of his shares ear­li­er this year was his first since tak­ing over the com­pa­ny in 2021, accord­ing to the New York Post. Thomp­son, Unit­ed­Health Group Chair­man Stephen Helm­s­ley, Chief Peo­ple Offi­cer Erin McSweeney, and Chief Account­ing Offi­cer Tom Roos sold a com­bined $101.5 mil­lion in shares.

Accord­ing to author­i­ties, the shoot­er arrived out­side of the Hilton hotel between five and ten min­utes before Thomp­son and appeared to be wait­ing for the Unit­ed­Health­care CEO before open­ing fire.

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Video footage of the shoot­ing showed the sus­pect, wear­ing all black with a gray back­pack, approach­ing the health insur­ance CEO from behind and shoot­ing him in the back. The shoot­er fired more shots at Thomp­son after he had fall­en to the ground. NYPD Chief of Detec­tives Joe Ken­ny said dur­ing a press con­fer­ence on Wednes­day that the suspect’s gun appeared to mal­func­tion, but the shoot­er fixed the jam and con­tin­ued fir­ing, show­ing he is like­ly famil­iar with using firearms.

Police are offer­ing a $10,000 reward for infor­ma­tion on the sus­pect.